ck  ST 


reoor 


ill 


Utttroln'a 

at*  31ui5|nratuw 


BOOKS  BY 
THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


ON  THE  TRAIL  or  WASHINGTON 

LINCOLN  THE  LAWYER 

THE  STORY  OF  A  STREET 

DECISIVE  BATTLES  OF  THE  LAW 

THE  ACCOMPLICE 

THE  WEB 

THE  MINORITY 

THE  CARE  OF  ESTATES 

THE  CASE  AND  EXCEPTIONS 


11  THE  BOY   LINCOLN  " 

BY    EASTMAN   JOHNSON 

From  a  Pastel    in   the  Possession  of  Berea  College 


Zmcotofc  Hegacp 
of  inspiration 


By 

FREDERICK   TREVOR   HILL 

Author  of  M 

"Lincoln  the  Lawyer,"  Etc. 


FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK       :       :       PUBLISHERS 


E457 


COPYRIGHT,  1909,  BY 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1909,  BY 
THE  NEW  YORK  TIMES- CO. 


October,  1909 


PREFATORY     NOTE 

THESE  papers  were  originally  printed  in  the 
New  York  Times,  February  1st  to  7th,  1909,  and 
formed  the  basis  of  a  prize  competition  among  the 
school  children  of  New  York  and  vicinity,  in 
honor  of  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  Lincoln's 
birth.  By  the  terms  of  the  contest  each  competitor 
was  required  to  write  a  composition  grounded  ex 
clusively  on  these  essays  which  aroused  unusual 
interest  from  the  moment  of  their  appearance  and 
attracted  increasing  attention  with  every  issue. 

Fully  ten  thousand  compositions  based  upon 
them  were  submitted  to  the  Times  by  the  students 
in  the  public  and  private  schools  in  New  York 
City  alone,  and  it  is  estimated  that  no  less  than 
twenty-five  thousand  were  written  while  the  orig 
inal  studies  herein  presented  were  widely  read  by 
the  general  public  throughout  the  country. 

In  Philadelphia  a  similar  contest  was  held  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Ledger,  and  there  five  thou 
sand  compositions  were  actually  submitted  by  the 
students,  and  probably  double  that  number  were 
written. 

— THE   PUBLISHERS. 


M46953 


•a 

tlj*  memory  of 
mg 


PREFATORY  NOTE   ........       vii 

.first 

FOR  THE  DISHEARTENED  IN  LIFE'S  HANDICAP         1 

Second 

FOR  THE  UNTALENTED  MAJORITY     ...        10 

C&irD 

FOR  THOSE  WHO  GROPE  IN  THE   DUST  OF 
DEFEAT 18 

JFourt6 

FOR  THOSE  WHO  STRIVE  FOR  IDEALS  IN  THEIR 
WORK  26 


JFiftfi 

FOR  THOSE  WHO  MAKE  THE  LONELY  FIGHT 
FOR   PRINCIPLES        .......        34> 


FOR   PUBLIC   SERVANTS   AND   PRIVATE    CITI 
ZENS    ...........        43 


FOR  MEN  OF  COMMON  MOLD  .  52 


Sltnrnln'a 
f  3ln0ptnttum 


Lincoln's   Legacy   of 
Inspiration. 


FOR    THE    DISHEARTENED   IN   LIFE'S 
HANDICAP 

FROM  the  standpoint  of  history  a 
century  is  but  a  yesterday,  and  a 
hundred  years  have  not  quite 
passed  since  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born. 
Yet  already  tradition,  eulogy,  and  ro 
mance  are  busy  with  his  memory,  weav 
ing  the  mantle  of  greatness  about  him  in 
such  fashion  that  all  the  rugged  outline 
of  his  very  human  personality  may  soon 
be  shrouded  from  our  view  and  the  man 
himself  translated  to  the  realm  of  heroes 
whose  development  is  a  mystery  and 
whose  achievements  are  the  despair  of  all 
ordinary  mortals. 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

There  is  very  little  incentive  in  the  ca 
reer  of  any  man  whose  success  is  inex 
plicable.  Marvelously  endowed  individ 
uals  may  excite  our  admiration  or  our 
wonder,  but  they  do  not  afford  much  in 
spiration  for  the  rank  and  file  of  strug 
gling  humanity. 

But  Lincoln  was  neither  a  heaven-born 
genius  nor  the  miraculous  product  of 
chance.  His  lot  was  cast  not  among  the 
favored  few,  but  among  men  of  common 
mold,  and  his  life  was  lived,  in  no  small 
measure,  for  the  benefit  and  encourage 
ment  of  his  fellow-countrymen  of  average 
ability  and  ordinary  calibre. 

There  is  nothing  obscure  about  his  de 
velopment.  All  his  achievements  can  be 
readily  understood.  They  were  the  di 
rect  results  of  a  mental  and  moral  dis 
cipline  and  training  to  which  any  manly- 
minded  man  may  subject  himself;  not 
with  the  same  political  results,  it  is  true, 
but  with  lasting  benefit  to  himself  and 
corresponding  advantage  to  the  commu 
nity  of  which  he  may  be  a  member. 

[2] 


SOMETHING  MADE  FROM  NOTHING 

The  results  in  Lincoln's  case  are  for 
history  and  the  historian;  the  processes 
by  which  he  arrived  at  those  results  are 
for  the  individual — for  the  by-and-large 
of  American  citizens. 

Few  Americans  of  this  day  and  genera 
tion  begin  life  with  the  forlorn  outlook 
which  greeted  Lincoln  at  his  birth.  It  is 
well-nigh  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
adverse  conditions  which  surrounded  him. 
The  cabin  where  he  first  saw  the  light  was 
not  much  more  than  a  woodman's  shack, 
with  a  flooring  of  hard  earth,  devoid  of 
most  of  the  comforts  and  many  of  the 
decencies  of  life.  The  land  about  it 
was  practically  an  unreclaimed  wilderness ; 
the  whole  countryside  was  lonely  to  the 
point  of  desolation ;  each  day  was  a  dreary 
struggle  for  food.  From  almost  every 
aspect  poverty  was  his  portion.  It  was 
not  degrading  poverty,  because  it  was  not 
dependent,  but  it  was  the  sort  that  weak 
ens  self-respect  and  affords  no  prospect 
of  escape. 

But  material  poverty  was  not  his  most 
[3] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY   OF    INSPIRATION 

discouraging  inheritance.  His  mother  un 
doubtedly  did  her  best  to  kindle  a  spark 
of  ambition  in  her  son,  but  she  was  an  un 
educated,  delicate,  and  even  sickly  house- 
drudge,  who  died  while  he  was  still  a  child, 
leaving  him  prone  to  the  suspicion  that  he 
had  an  inherited  tendency  to  consumption. 
His  father  was  an  illiterate,  shiftless 
farmer  and  carpenter,  without  skill  or 
training  at  either  calling,  who  regarded 
education  as  a  waste  of  time,  and  would 
not  permit  the  boy  to  attend  school  ex 
cept  at  rare  intervals.  Indeed,  the  only 
effort  he  made  to  instruct  his  son  was  a 
half-hearted  attempt  to  teach  him  carpen 
try,  which  was  soon  abandoned  when  he 
found  that  he  could  hire  him  out  to  other 
farmers  in  need  of  an  extra  hand. 

Uninspiring  as  his  home  influence  was, 
that  of  the  neighborhood  was  even  more 
so.  There  was  practically  nothing  in  his 
surroundings  in  Kentucky,  or  at  Gentry- 
ville,  Indiana,  where  he  lived  after  his 
mother's  death,  to  touch  the  imagination 
of  a  growing  boy  or  quicken  his  ambition. 

[4] 


SOMETHING  MADE  FROM  NOTHING 

The  country  was  sparsely  settled  and  the 
life  was  not  really  living — it  was  an  ani 
mal-like  existence.  Surely  no  American 
ever  had  better  reason  to  complain  of  his 
chance  in  life.  It  was  not  a  fair  chance. 
It  was  practically  no  chance  at  all.  But 
Lincoln  was  searching  for  opportunities, 
not  excuses,  and  he  fouqd  what  he  was 
seeking. 

This  was  not  the  result  of  luck  or  favor 
or  any  consciousness  of  dawning  powers. 
He  was  no  inspired  dreamer,  who,  in  the 
midst  of  hard  realities,  saw  a  vision  of 
coming  greatness.  He  lived,  not  in  the 
future,  but  one  day  at  a  time,  and  neither 
during  this  nor  at  any  other  period  of  his 
life  did  Lincoln  ever  hurry.  He  had 
common  sense  enough  to  realize  that  his 
chance  of  advancement  lay  in  education, 
and,  instead  of  fretting  over  the  disad 
vantages  under  which  he  labored,  he  en 
deavored  to  overcome  them.  Thus,  while 
he  performed  the  dull,  routine  tasks  about 
his  father's  house  and  farm  he  acquired 
the  habit  of  thinking  of  others  rather  than 

[5] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

of  himself,  until  the  neighbors  gradually 
came  to  recognize  that  he  was  one  of  the 
few  persons  in  the  community  who  could 
be  confidently  relied  upon  for  every  sort 
of  friendly  office  and  kindness,  from 
roofing  a  barn  to  rocking  a  baby. 

This  was  a  very  modest  distinction,  but 
it  was  quite  as  rare  then  as  it  is  to-day, 
and  though  what  he  did  was  done  without 
thought  of  a  return,  it  brought  its  own 
reward.  People  took  an  interest  in  this 
unostentatious,  unselfish  boy,  and  they 
loaned  him  their  books  with  such  freedom 
that  he  soon  secured  all  that  were  avail 
able  within  a  radius  of  many  miles.  It 
was  no  anointed  youth,  however,  who 
pored  over  those  volumes  by  the  light  of 
his  father's  fire,  but  a  very  practical 
young  man,  who  kept  his  ambitions  well 
within  bounds  and  was  satisfied  to  pro 
gress  step  by  step.  Once  he  accidentally 
injured  one  of  the  borrowed  books,  and 
when  the  not  too  generous  lender  de 
manded  compensation,  he  worked  out  the 
damages  at  twenty-five  cents  a  day  in  no 
[6] 


SOMETHING    MADE     FROM    NOTHING 

saint-like  spirit,  but  as  a  matter  of  justice, 
and  this — one  of  the  few  well-authenti 
cated  stories  of  his  early  life — affords  a 
clear  glimpse  of  the  man  in  the  making. 

Those  who  picture  Lincoln  as  a  pre 
cocious  youth  of  angelic  disposition  do 
not  understand  his  character  at  all.  He 
was  no  more  fond  of  hard  work  than 
other  boys  of  his  age,  and  he  amused 
himself  whenever  he  had  the  chance.  But 
he  did  not  waste  his  time.  Dull  as  Gen- 
tryville,  Indiana,  was,  it  had  one  red- 
letter  day  on  its  calendar,  and  that  was 
the  meeting  of  the  Circuit  Court  at 
Boonville,  fifteen  miles  away.  Thither 
Lincoln  trudged  to  listen  with  rapt  at 
tention  to  the  harangues  of  the  back 
woods  lawyers,  and  watch  with  keen  in 
terest  the  drama  of  life  as  it  was  por 
trayed  on  that  mimic  stage,  and  there  he 
doubtless  received  the  first  impulse  to  fit 
himself  for  the  profession  of  the  law. 

But  this  dream  made  him  neither  dis 
contented  nor  restless.  The  idea  of 
abandoning  his  home  duties  never  crossed 
[7] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

his  mind.  Unquestionably  he  could  have 
bettered  his  chances  at  that  period  had 
he  followed  his  dawning  ambitions  in 
stead  of  continuing  to  help  his  father 
amid  discouraging  surroundings  and  diffi 
culties.  Yet  he  remained  at  home  and 
gave  his  family  the  benefit  of  his  services 
until  he  was  twenty-one,  up  to  which  time 
he  had  earned  practically  nothing  for 
himself. 

But  from  nothing  Lincoln  was  slowly 
but  surely  making  something,  and  that 
something  was  character.  From  depriva 
tion  and  want  he  was  evolving  helpful 
ness  and  unselfishness;  from  lack  of  op 
portunities  he  was  developing  modesty 
and  resourcefulness;  from  sorrow  and 
neglect  he  was  acquiring  sympathy;  from 
solitude  and  simplicity  he  was  learning 
the  value  of  truth.  For  despondency  and 
discontent  he  was  fashioning  humor;  for 
lack  of  book  learning  he  was  providing 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  men;  for  luck 
and  favor  he  was  substituting  courage. 

"  The  little  farm  that  raised  a  man " 

[8] 


SOMETHING    MADE     FROM    NOTHING 

was  not  enchanted  ground.  The  seeds 
that  were  sowed  there  are  within  the  reach 
of  all.  Abraham  Lincoln  is  an  inspiring 
product  of  the  soil.  He  is  a  prophecy 
for  those  who  believe  in  their  native  land. 


[9] 


SeconD 

FOR    THE    UNTALENTED    MAJORITY 

IT  has  been  truly  said  of  Lincoln  that 
"  he  never  finished  his  education  "  and 
that  to  the  close  of  his  life  he  was 
"  a  learner,  an  inquirer,  a  searcher  after 
knowledge — never  afraid  of  asking  ques 
tions — never  too  dignified  to  admit  that  he 
did  not  know." 

The  whole  of  Lincoln's  schooling 
amounted  to  less  than  a  year  in  all,  and 
the  little  instruction  he  received  from  the 
five  schoolmasters,  each  of  whom  taught 
him  for  a  few  weeks  at  long  intervals 
during  his  boyhood,  was  extremely  ele 
mentary.  He  may,  therefore,  fairly  be  said 
to  have  educated  himself,  and  of  this  edu 
cation  came  a  man  who  divined  all  the 
underlying  motives  of  the  human  heart, 
who  "with  sincerity  deceived  the  deceit 
ful,"  and  who  passed  through  the  fiercest 

[10] 


STRUGGLING    UPWARD 

of  political  controversies  without  leaving 
one  word  of  offense  for  even  the  bitter 
est  of  his  foes. 

His  reading  was  directed  by  chance 
rather  than  by  selection,  and  to  what  ex 
tent  he  was  influenced  by  the  books  which 
he  eagerly  borrowed  is  an  open  question. 
Certainly  the  well-known  list  of  those  that 
first  fell  into  his  hands  comprises  a 
strange  assortment — "  ^Esop's  Fables," 
and  the  "Revised  Statutes  of  Indiana," 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  Weems's  pre 
posterous  "  Life  of  Washington,"  "  Rob 
inson  Crusoe,"  the  Bible,  and  a  history  of 
the  United  States.  These  and  other  vol 
umes  he  read  at  every  opportunity; 
sometimes  while  walking  to  and  from  his 
work;  sometimes  in  the  woods  and  fields 
while  resting  from  the  ax  and  plow,  and 
often  in  his  home  at  nights.  Here,  too,  he 
practiced  writing,  and  worked  out  sums 
on  the  wooden  fire  shovel  in  default  of  a 
slate,  making  the  best  of  things  and  care 
fully  husbanding  his  slim  resources. 

It  was  no  brilliant  student  who  thus  de- 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

yoted  himself  to  acquiring  the  rudiments 
of  education,  but  a  patient,  painstaking 
and  somewhat  plodding  boy,  for  Lincoln's 
mind  matured  very  slowly.  Indeed,  he 
did  not  show  any  signs  of  promise  until 
he  was  about  eighteen,  and  even  in  the 
prime  of  life  his  intellectual  processes 
were  far  from  quick.  His  mind,  he  re 
marked,  was  like  a  piece  of  steel — very 
hard  to  scratch,  but  almost  impossible  to 
free  of  any  mark  once  made  upon  it. 
Those  who  have  had  the  benefit  of  good 
instruction  and  understand  proper  meth 
ods  of  study  can  scarcely  conceive  the 
difficulties  under  which  such  a  boy  would 
labor  in  acquiring  knowledge  without  as 
sistance.  A  severer  discipline  can  hardly 
be  imagined. 

His  slowness  and  lack  of  guidance  had, 
however,  the  advantage  of  making  Lin 
coln  thorough.  He  never  was  sure  that 
he  knew  anything  unless  he  understood  it 
perfectly.  We  have  his  own  statement 
that  to  comprehend  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "demonstrate"  he  .worked  until  he 

[12] 


STRUGGLING    UPWARD 

had  mastered  the  six  books  of  Euclid,  and 
this  was  long  after  his  boyhood  days.  In 
deed,  there  never  was  a  man  more  famil 
iar  with  the  pains  and  woes  of  mental 
drudgery  than  Lincoln,  and  it  required 
real  courage  to  keep  him  at  his  task,  for 
he  was  not  fond  of  study  for  its  own  sake. 
Neither  was  he  naturally  thorough  or 
methodical.  On  the  contrary  he  was  in 
clined  to  disorderly  habits  and  slipshod 
methods,  some  of  which  he  never  outgrew, 
and  at  first  he  attempted  to  clip  corners 
and  find  short  cuts  to  learning  quite  as 
often  and  as  hopefully  as  other  boys  have 
done.  Indeed,  it  was  only  through  re 
peated  failure  that  he  learned  that  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  acquire  anything 
except  at  the  price  of  good  hard  work. 
Even  when  he  began  to  study  law  he  had 
a  fleeting  hope  that  his  knack  of  speech- 
making  would  relieve  him  from  the 
drudgery  of  the  profession,  only  to  con 
fess,  before  many  years  had  passed,  that 
any  one  who  relied  on  such  an  exemption 
was  "  a  failure  in  advance." 

[13] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY   OF   INSPIRATION 

Americans  are  said  to  admire  smart 
ness,  sharpness,  and  showy  traits  of  mind, 
but  these  qualities  were  all  conspicuously 
lacking  in  Lincoln.  He  could,  upon  oc 
casion,  make  a  bright  reply  or  a  neat  re 
tort,  but  as  a  rule  he  required  time  and 
careful  preparation  to  appear  at  an  ad 
vantage,  and  he  was  often  painfully  slow 
in  making  up  his  mind.  Perfectly  aware 
of  these  limitations,  he  concentrated  all  his 
efforts  upon  discovering  the  real  issue  or 
point  in  any  subject  and  mastering  that 
to  the  exclusion  of  details,  and  of  this 
training  came  one  of  the  most  pitiless 
analyzers  of  facts,  one  of  the  soundest 
logicians,  and  one  of  the  keenest  trailers 
of  truth  that  the  world  has  ever  known. 
This  was  not,,  however,  solely  or  even 
largely,  the  result  of  his  application  to 
books.  He  had  neither  the  tastes  nor 
the  opportunities  of  a  book-worm.  He 
preferred  the  company  of  his  fellow  men, 
and  from  them  he  learned  far  more  than 
he  did  from  any  printed  page.  He  was 
not,  however,  wrhat  is  generally  known  as 

[14] 


STRUGGLING    UPWARD 

a  student  of  human  nature.  Probably  it 
never  occurred  to  him  to  dissect  and  ex 
amine  critically  the  minds  and  characters 
of  his  acquaintances  and  friends.  Never 
theless,  he  was  a  close  and  accurate  ob 
server,  and  by  mixing  freely  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  he  acquired  a  re 
markable  knowledge  of  humanity.  In 
the  discussions  at  the  country  store  at  Sa 
lem,  and  at  other  local  forums,  he  discov 
ered  that  the  man  of  moderate  attain 
ments,  who  was  truthful  and  sincere, 
often  had  his  mental  superiors  at  a  de 
cided  disadvantage,  and  early  in  his  ca 
reer  he  schooled  himself  against  exagger 
ation  and  overstatement  of  every  kind. 

To  present  facts  clearly,  concisely  and 
effectively,  without  taking  undue  advan 
tage  of  them,  is  no  mean  accomplishment. 
It  requires  not  only  ability  and  courage, 
but  tact  and  character,  and  in  Lincoln's 
hands  it  became  both  a  shield  of  defense 
and  a  weapon  of  attack.  He  neither  de 
ceived  himself  nor  allowed  others  to  de 
ceive  him,  and  he  honestly  and  fairly 

[15] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

looked  on  all  sides  of  every  question  be 
fore  making  up  his  mind.  This  not  only 
rendered  him  sure  of  his  own  ground  and 
tolerant  of  the  opinions  of  others,  but 
gave  him  a  knowledge  of  his  adversaries' 
resources  which  was  invaluable  in  time  of 
need. 

As  a  result,  we  have  his  own  state 
ment  that  in  all  his  experience  as  a  lawyer 
he  was  never  once  surprised  by  the 
strength  of  an  opponent's  case,  and  fre 
quently  found  it  much  weaker  than  he 
feared.  In  like  manner,  during  the  con 
test  over  slavery,  he  so  thoroughly  mas 
tered  the  arguments  of  those  who  differed 
with  him  that  he  was  often  able  to  turn 
them  to  his  own  advantage,  forcing  his 
great  rival  Douglas  to  confess  that  he  had 
given  him  more  trouble  than  all  the  Aboli 
tionists  together. 

It  is  surprising  How  few  people  do 
their  own  thinking.  Most  men  try  to 
learn  what  the  majority  think  and  adopt 
its  opinions.  Some  attempt  to  be  orig 
inal  by  searching  out  the  popular  view 
^  [16] 


STRUGGLING    UPWARD 

and  taking  exactly  the  opposite.  But 
Lincoln  did  not  feel  compelled  to  think 
as  others  thought,  nor  did  he  try  to 
attract  attention  to  himself  by  airing 
"  queer  "  opinions.  He  endeavored  to  dis 
cover  the  truth  about  everything  and 
to  think  accordingly,  and  to  this  end  he 
cultivated  sincerity;  he  brought  himself 
into  close  contact  and  sympathy  with  his 
fellow  men;  he  was  honest  in  thought  as 
well  as  in  action;  he  made  no  claims  to 
superior  wisdom;  he  respected  the  mo 
tives  of  those  whose  conclusions  he  could 
not  accept.  He  was  as  fair  to  others  as 
to  himself,  seeking  only  the  right  as  God 
gave  him  to  see  the  right. 

It  was  these  qualities  of  the  heart 
rather  than  of  the  brain  that  started  Lin 
coln  on  his  distinguished  career.  He  was 
neither  an  intellectual  giant  nor  a  learned 
man.  From  his  success  all  his  fellow 
countrymen  of  modest  abilities  may  take 
courage  and  incentive. 


[17] 


CftltD 

FOR  THOSE  WHO  GROPE  IN  THE  DUST 
OF    DEFEAT 

CCOLN'S  development  is  not  in 
frequently  described  as  though 
it  were  the  progressive  triumph 
of  a  man — something  more  than  mortal — 
who,  though  acquainted  with  poverty  and 
misfortune  in  his  childhood,  took  ad 
vantage  of  his  first  opportunity  in  life, 
and  whose  career  thereafter  steadily 
spelled  success.  This  man  of  fixed  pur 
pose  and  indomitable  will  undoubtedly 
makes  a  stirring  appeal  as  a  hero,  but  he 
has  nothing  in  common  with  those  who, 
after  repeated  attempts  to  "find  them 
selves,"  discover  failure  staring  them  in 
the  face.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
the  whole  of  Lincoln's  early  manhood  is  a 
record  of  failure  from  a  material  point  of 
view,  and  few  men  have  ever  had  less  to 

[18] 


MAKING    A   LIFE   AND   A   LIVING 

show  for  their  first  years  of  effort  than 
he  had  at  the  age  of  twenty-four. 

As  a  field  laborer  he  was  far  from  a 
success,  for  he  took  no  interest  in  farm 
ing  and  never  cared  to  work  at  it  a  day 
longer  than  was  necessary  to  put  him 
self  in  funds.  Moreover,  his  employers 
looked  decidedly  askance  at  the  "hired 
man  "  who  read  as  he  followed  the  plow, 
even  if  his  furrows  did  run  true. 

As  a  clerk  in  Offutt's  country  store  he 
did  little  better,  and  beyond  the  fact  that 
he  served  the  customers  conscientiously 
with  full  weights  and  measures,  he  did 
nothing  to  prove  himself  indispensable. 
Neither  his  heart  nor  his  mind  was  in  his 
\vork,  and  he  watched  the  business  "  wink 
out "  with  no  perceptible  regret. 

Then  he  sought  glory  at  the  cannon's 
mouth  in  the  farcical  "  Black  Hawk  war," 
where  he  never  even  saw  an  Indian,  and 
where  the  "  bloody  encounters  with  the 
mosquitoes  "  and  the  "  fierce  charges  on 
the  wild  onions  "  were  the  most  glorious 
episodes  of  the  campaign!  Then,  some- 
[19] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

what  as  a  forlorn  hope,  he  turned  to  po 
litical  life,  presenting  himself  as  a  can 
didate  for  the  Legislature,  only  to  meet 
with  defeat  and  to  find  himself  at  the 
end  of  several  profitless  months  utterly 
destitute  of  resources. 

This  was  not  a  very  promising  record 
for  a  man  of  twenty-three.  He  had,  it 
is  true,  steadily  cherished  a  more  or  less 
vague  idea  of  becoming  a  lawyer,  but  he 
had  not  pursued  it  systematically,  and 
he  finally  drifted  back  into  the  grocery 
business,  this  time  as  part  proprietor  of 
a  store  bought  on  credit  without  much 
prospect  of  making  the  venture  pay.  In 
deed,  the  manner  in  which  he  and  his 
associate  Berry  conducted  this  enterprise 
almost  insured  its  failure,  for  the  senior 
member  of  the  firm  idled  away  his  days 
in  dissolute  living,  while  the  junior  mem 
ber  studied  law,  and  between  them  their 
slender  stock  of  merchandise  disappeared, 
Berry  drinking  and  Lincoln  eating  it  up. 

There  is  a  story,  which  has  at  least  the 
authenticity  of  being  in  character,  that 

[20] 


MAKING   A   LIFE   AND   A    LIVING 

affords  an  excellent  illustration  of  Lin 
coln's  attitude  toward  his  business.  Ac 
cording  to  this  tale  a  customer  once  dis 
turbed  Lincoln  at  his  reading  by  entering 
the  store  and  requesting  five  cents'  worth 
of  crackers.  Lincoln  laid  aside  his  book 
and,  mechanically  complying  with  the  de 
mand,  awaited  payment;  but  the  customer 
changed  his  mind,  remarking  that  he 
thought  he  would  take  a  glass  of  cider  in 
stead,  if  it  was  the  same  price.  Lincoln 
swept  the  crackers  back  into  a  barrel 
and  produced  the  cider,  which  the  man 
promptly  drank,  and  then  started  for  the 
door.  At  this  point  the  store-keeping 
student  of  law,  with  his  hand  reaching 
for  his  Blackstone,  roused  himself  suf 
ficiently  to  remind  the  customer  that  he 
had  not  paid. 

"  Why,  I  gave  you  five  cents'  worth  of 
crackers,  didn't  I?"  demanded  the  pur 
chaser.  "Yes,"  admitted  Lincoln,  "but 
you  didn't  pay  for  them."  "Well,  I 
didn't  get  them,  did  I?"  was  the  retort, 
and  the  man  who  was  one  day  to  become 

[21] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

a  master  of  logic  resumed  his  book  with 
a  vague  feeling  that  there  was  something 
not  quite  right  with  the  transaction,  but 
just  what  it  was  he  had  not  time  to  puzzle 
out.  Such  was  Lincoln,  the  merchant, 
and  his  career  in  that  capacity  soon  came 
to  an  inglorious  close. 

By  this  time  he  was  four  and  twenty, 
and  he  had  not  only  not  succeeded,  but 
had  given  no  evidence  of  stability  and  no 
indication  whatever  of  aptitude  for  any 
line  of  work.  Those  who  have  fretted 
over  the  waste  of  time  spent  upon  uncon 
genial  tasks  can  realize  the  discourage 
ment  which  confronted  him  at  this  crisis 
of  his  affairs,  for  he  had  not  only  failed 
to  fit  himself  for  the  bar,  but  had  com 
pletely  bankrupted  himself. 

For  the  penniless  man  bankruptcy  is 
said  to  have  no  terrors.  But  it  was  not 
so  with  Lincoln.  It  provided  him  with 
as  sore  a  business  temptation  as  ever  con 
fronted  a  man  on  the  threshold  of  life, 
and  subjected  his  sense  of  honor  to  a 
thoroughly  practical  test. 

[22] 


MAKING    A    LIFE   AND    A    LIVING 

Eulogy  has  robbed  Lincoln's  honesty 
of  nearly  all  its  human  quality.  He  has 
been  presented  so  often  in  the  role  of  the 
perfect  man,  with  even  a  touch  of  divinity 
added,  that  all  real  analogy  between 
his  experiences  and  those  of  the  modern 
business  world  has  practically  vanished. 
And  yet  it  was  a  man  of  ordinary  clay, 
with  every  reason  for  wishing  to  make  his 
way  in  the  world,  who  saw  the  ruin  of  all 
his  hopes  in  the  failure  of  Berry  &  Lin 
coln's  store,  for  he  and  his  partner  had 
given  promissory  notes  for  the  purchase 
price  of  the  business  in  which  they  had 
invested,  and  when  Berry  died  all  the 
holders  of  these  notes  looked  to  Lincoln 
for  payment.  This  would  have  been  bad 
enough  if  the  claimants  had  been  the  per 
sons  to  whom  he  and  his  associate  had 
originally  obligated  themselves,  but  those 
people  had  long  since  disposed  of  the 
notes  for  a  fraction  of  their  face  value. 

Men  who  bought  paper  of  this  descrip 
tion  in  the  early  days  of  Illinois  usually 
sold  it  again  at  the  first  opportunity  or 

[23] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

traded  it  for  something  else,  and  thus 
it  passed  from  hand  to  hand  until  some 
speculator,  who  had  acquired  it  for  noth 
ing,  or  next  to  nothing,  appeared  and 
demanded  the  uttermost  farthing.  Nat 
urally  this  dubious  business  encouraged 
the  evasion  of  such  debts,  and  public 
opinion  countenanced  repudiation  under 
the  circumstances,  so  there  would  have 
been  few  to  criticise  Lincoln  had  he 
avoided  payment  and  there  were  not  many 
who  saw  much  merit  in  what  he  did. 

From  a  worldly  point  of  view,  repudia 
tion  was  the  only  course  to  adopt,  unless 
he  was  prepared  to  mortgage  his  earnings 
and  handicap  if  not  defeat  his  ambitions. 
It  was  easy  to  argue  that  the  business 
had  never  been  worth  anything,  and  that 
the  original  owners  having  voluntarily 
sold  Berry  &  Lincoln's  notes  for  a  song, 
had  received  their  full  due  and  that  those 
who  had  paid  little  or  nothing  for  them 
ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  profit  by  a 
transaction  which,  if  not  usurious,  was 
not  much  more  respectable.  There  was 

[24] 


MAKING    A    LIFE    AND    A    LIVING 

every  incentive  for  Lincoln  to  adopt  this 
view.  But  to  him  a  promise  was  a  prom 
ise,  and  as  a  matter  of  self-respect,  and 
not  at  all  as  a  heroic  act  of  virtue,  he  re 
fused  to  compromise  with  his  conscience 
and  declined  to  deceive  himself  with  "  law 
honesty." 

It  was  no  saint  who  thus  met  the  de 
mands  of  his  creditors  and  hampered 
himself  for  fourteen  years  while  he  dis 
charged  what  he  called  his  "  National 
debt."  Not  a  saint  at  all — but  a  man  who 
knew  that  "  you  cannot  cheat  at  solitaire 
and  think  you've  won  the  game." 

Lincoln  did  not  spring  fully  armed  into 
the  contest  in  which  he  made  history. 
For  many  a  year  before  he  worked  his 
way  into  the  profession  of  the  law,  he 
had  a  part  with  those  who  despair  of  ever 
finding  their  place  in  the  world  and  are 
tempted  to  dishonoring  expedients. 

His  message  to  his  eagerly  striving 
countrymen  of  the  present  generation  is 
that  it  is  "better  to  make  a  life  than  a 
living." 

[25] 


JFourtfi 

FOR   THOSE   WHO   STRIVE   FOR   IDEALS 
IN  THEIR  WORK 

ECOLN  did  not  awake  to  find 
himself  famous  in  the  ranks  of 
his  chosen  profession  of  the  law. 
His  uncouth  appearance  was  not  in  his 
favor,  and  he  had  many  other  defects  that 
militated  against  his  success.  In  all  the 
neat  and  methodical  habits  which  charac 
terize  the  precise  attorney  he  was  woefully 
deficient.  He  hated  the  drudgery  and 
the  technicalities  of  his  calling.  He 
thoroughly  despised  the  tricks  of  his 
trade.  Nevertheless,  he  indignantly  re 
pudiated  the  idea  that  honesty  was  not 
compatible  with  practical  service  at  the 
bar.  "Let  no  young  man  choosing  the 
law  for  his  profession  yield  for  one  mo 
ment  to  that  popular  belief"  he  declared. 
fe  If  you  do  not  believe  that  you  can  be 
[26] 


HONOR    AND    "LAW    HONESTY'1 

an  honest  lawyer,  resolve  to  be  honest 
without  being  a  lawyer.  Choose  some 
other  occupation  rather  than  one  in  the 
choosing  of  which  you  do  in  advance  con 
fess  yourself  to  be  a  knave" 

This  was  not  the  advice  of  a  tyro  or  an 
idealist,  but  of  an  experienced  practi 
tioner,  who  had  demonstrated  the  truth 
of  his  assertion  that  ff  as  a  peacemaker 
the  lawyer  has  a  superior  opportunity  of 
proving  himself  a  good  man"  if  he  cares 
to  make  the  most  of  it. 

But  though  he  respected  and  honored 
his  profession,  Lincoln  had  no  reverence 
for  law  merely  because  it  was  law.  Again 
and  again  during  his  long  training  in  the 
courts  he  refused  to  invoke  statutes  at 
the  expense  of  justice,  even  in  the  inter 
est  of  his  clients.  He  practiced  law — he 
did  not  practice  on  law. 

To  the  insolvent  debtor  who  desired 
him  to  devise  a  new  way  of  paying  old 
debts  he  turned  a  deaf  ear;  to  the  rapa 
cious  creditor  who  sought  his  assistance  in 
securing  his  pound  of  flesh  he  gave  the 
[27] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

free  advice  that  he  had  better  try  his  hand 
at  making  money  some  other  way;  to  a 
jury  in  a  case  where  two  young  men  were 
attempting  to  get  rid  of  their  honest  obli 
gation  by  claiming  to  be  a  few  days  under 
age  he  made  a  passionate  plea  that  they 
should  not  help  the  delinquents  to  take 
advantage  of  the  law  and  place  a  stain  of 
dishonor  upon  themselves  which  they 
would  never  afterward  be  able  to  remove ; 
to  the  Judge  who  forbade  him  to  aban 
don  a  client  in  the  midst  of  a  case  after 
he  had  discovered  that  the  man  had  been 
guilty  of  fraud,  he  sent  back  this  mes 
sage,  "  Tell  the  Judge  that  my  hands  are 
dirty  and  that  I've  gone  away  to  "wash 
them." 

Lincoln  was  certainly  a  poor  business 
man  if  the  criterion  of  success  be  the 
making  of  money.  For  this  he  cared 
little  or  nothing.  ff  Wealth"  he  observed, 
"is  merely  a  superfluity  of  things  we 
don't  need."  He  had  no  skill  in  making 
up  his  charges — no  knack  of  keeping  his 
clients  in  the  courts.  Indeed,  his  opinions 

[28] 


HONOR    AND    "  LAW    HONESTY  " 

on  this  subject  were  exceedingly  objec 
tionable  to  greedier  members  of  the  pro 
fession.  " Discourage  litigation"  was 
his  advice  to  lawyers.  fe  Persuade  your 
neighbors  to  compromise  whenever  you 
can.  Point  out  to  them  how  the  nominal 
winner  is  often  the  real  loser — in  fees, 
expenses  and  waste  of  time.  Never  stir 
up  litigation.  A  worse  man  can  scarcely 
be  found  than  one  who  does  this.  A 
moral  tone  ought  to  be  infused  into  the 
profession  which  should  drive  such  men 
out  of  it"  Lincoln  may  have  been,  and 
undoubtedly  was,  utterly  lacking  in  all 
the  essentials  of  commercial  genius,  but 
in  this  instance  he  was  merely  ahead  of 
his  time.  The  methods  he  advocated 
sixty  years  ago  are  those  of  the  most  suc 
cessful  practitioners  of  to-day. 

It  was  neither  brilliancy  nor  learning 
that  made  Lincoln  an  effective  lawyer. 
He  was  not  only  not  a  profound  student 
of  the  law,  he  was  not,  in  any  scholarly 
sense,  a  student  at  all.  He  schooled  him 
self  in  the  great  fundamental  principles 
[29] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

of  the  common  law  of  England  and  ap 
plied  them  with  such  clarity  that  even 
the  dullest  layman  could  not  fail  to  com 
prehend  the  point.  His  mind  was 
orderly,  though  his  habits  were  not,  and 
knowing  that  the  issue  in  most  controver 
sies  lies  in  very  narrow  compass,  he 
avoided  the  error  of  the  mediocre  advo 
cate,  who  is  easily  diverted  by  details,  and 
pressed  steadily  and  directly  to  the  heart 
of  his  case,  disregarding  all  the  academic 
pros  and  cons  and  reducing  the  problem 
to  its  simplest  form. 

Absolutely  sincere  himself,  he  found 
little  difficulty  in  persuading  others,  and 
his  logical  mind  marshaled  facts  in  such 
orderly  sequence  that  a  child  could  follow 
him  through  the  most  complicated  cause. 
In  a  word,  Lincoln  relied  on  the  truth, 
knew  how  to  tell  it,  and  was  not  afraid 
to  do  so,  and  his  statement  of  facts  thus 
had  the  force  of  argument.  The  average 
practitioner  has  neither  the  courage  nor 
the  skill  to  accomplish  this,  and  his  omis 
sions  and  perversions  naturally  reflect  on 
[so] 


HONOR    AND    "LAW    HONESTY" 

his  honesty  or  sincerity.  This  is  largely 
the  secret  of  Lincoln's  success  in  the 
courts,  and  it  defines  his  limitations.  To 
be  effective  he  had  to  believe  in  the  cause 
he  espoused,  and  he  would  not  willingly 
undertake  a  case  of  whose  merits  he  him 
self  was  not  convinced.  ((  You  speak  to 
the  jury"  he  once  entreated  his  associate 
counsel;  "if  I  say  a  word  they  will  see 
from  my  face  that  the  man  is  guilty  and 
convict  him." 

There  were  many  at  the  Illinois  bar  who 
were  more  widely  read  lawyers  than  Lin 
coln,  many  who  had  more  eloquence  at 
their  command,  far  better  presence,  and 
no  less  experience.  There  were  also  many 
"  limbs  of  the  law  "  better  versed  in  the 
refinements  of  pleading  and  the  quibbles 
and  technicalities  of  practice  than  he  was. 
Probably  all  such  petty  tricksters  could 
have  caught  him  tripping  in  their  nets, 
and  some  of  them  did.  But  it  is  for 
every  practitioner  at  the  bar  to  decide  for 
himself  what  manner  of  lawyer  he  shall 
be.  He  may  join  the  ranks  of  the  sly  and 

[31] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

shifty  gentry  who  work  by  indirection;  he 
may  fit  himself  for  the  role  of  the  legal 
bravo  who  can  be  hired  to  prosecute  or  de 
fend  any  cause  at  a  price;  he  may  herd 
with  the  legal  def eaters  of  the  law;  he 
may  specialize  in  any  one  of  a  thousand 
like  activities, — or  he  may  follow  the 
trail  which  Abraham  Lincoln  blazed. 

During  all  his  three  and  twenty  years 
of  active  practice  Lincoln  never  found 
it  necessary  to  sacrifice  his  conscience  to  a 
code;  he  never  surrendered  his  private 
principles  for  personal  gain;  his  services 
were  constantly  in  demand,  but  they  were 
never  for  sale ;  he  served  hundreds  of  cli 
ents,  but  was  owned  by  none ;  his  ideas  of 
justice  and  honor  were  not  regulated  by 
the  latest  decisions;  he  recognized  some 
thing  higher  than  the  judgment  of  a  court 
of  last  resort.  Yet  he  was  neither  an  im 
practical  dreamer  nor  a  god.  For  almost 
a  quarter  of  a  century  he  supported  him 
self  and  his  family  from  his  earnings  as  a 
lawyer,  and  yet  throughout  this  long  ex 
perience  he  practiced  his  profession  unde- 

[32] 


HONOR    AND    "LAW    HONESTY" 

ceived  by  its  sophistries  and  unswerved  by 
its  manifold  temptations,  believing  always 
in  its  highest  possibilities. 

There  is  something  radically  wrong 
with  ideals  which  cannot  be  upheld  in  the 
workshops  of  the  world.  Sentimental 
ideas  are  often  mistaken  for  ideals,  but 
men  of  character  quickly  distinguish  be 
tween  the  real  and  the  sham,  and  sound 
ideals  do  not  suffer  at  their  hands. 

Lincoln  tested  the  ideals  of  his  calling 
and  proved  them  to  be  practical.  That 
alone  entitles  him  to  the  thanks  of  every 
honest  member  of  the  bar.  He  is  the 
support  and  inspiration  of  all  who  desire 
to  make  the  honorable  profession  of  the 
law  worthy  of  its  name. 


[33] 


Jfiftfi 

FOR  THOSE  WHO  MAKE  THE  LONELY 
FIGHT  FOR  PRINCIPLES 

THE  interest  and  importance  of 
Lincoln's  career  as  President 
have  naturally  created  the  im 
pression  that  his  life  was  largely  devoted 
to  politics  and  that  he  was  an  extraordi 
narily  successful  politician.  The  truth 
is,  however,  that  he  spent  comparatively 
little  of  his  time  in  the  political  arena 
prior  to  the  civil  war,  and  his  record  there 
was  mainly  a  series  of  disappointments 
and  defeats.  He  served  four  consecu 
tive  terms  in  the  Illinois  Legislature  dur 
ing  his  early  years,  and  one  term  in  Con 
gress,  but  that  was  his  entire  experience 
as  an  officeholder.  The  explanation  of 
this  is  apparent  upon  the  surface.  He 
was  not  regarded  as  a  "  practical "  poli 
tician  or  a  generally  available  candidate. 

[34] 


FAILURES    THAT    SUCCEEDED 

Party  rule  and  discipline  had  not  been 
effected  in  Illinois  when  he  first  entered 
the  political  field.  The  nominations  for 
office  were  not  made  by  conventions,  and 
any  man  who  chose  to  present  himself  as 
a  candidate  could  do  so  by  the  simple  ex 
pedient  of  announcing  that  fact  and  stat 
ing  his  individual  opinions  concerning  the 
questions  of  the  day.  The  "machine" 
and  "  the  boss  "  as  they  now  exist  were 
practically  unknown.  Nevertheless  there 
were  even  then  partisan  cliques  and  lead 
ers  who  made  their  influence  felt,  and 
Lincoln  had  not  been  long  in  office  before 
he  asserted  his  independence  of  them  and 
braved  the  displeasure  of  the  public. 

In  his  twenty-eighth  year  the  Illinois 
Legislature  passed  a  series  of  resolutions 
condemning  the  formation  of  Abolition 
ist  societies,  upholding  the  "  sacred  "  right 
of  property  in  slaves,  and  declaring 
against  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.  This  was  entirely  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  prevailing  sentiment  in 
the  State  at  the  time,  and  any  young  leg- 

[35] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

islator  who  opposed  it  did  so  at  his  peril. 
Of  this  Lincoln  was  fully  aware,  and 
with  every  reason  for  wishing  to  avoid  in 
juring  his  political  future,  he  might  well 
have  been  content  to  cast  an  inconspicu 
ous  negative  vote.  A  prudent  politician, 
conscientiously  opposed  to  the  resolutions, 
would  undoubtedly  have  adopted  this 
course,  but  Lincoln  proceeded  to  demon 
strate  that  he  was  neither  a  prudent  nor  a 
"  practical "  politician  by  not  only  voting 
against  the  measure  but  also  attempting 
to  induce  his  associates  to  subscribe  to  a 
written  protest  against  the  action  of  the 
majority.  It  was  a  very  cautious  and 
inoffensive  document  which  he  prepared, 
but  it  was  sufficiently  alarming  to  be  al 
most  unanimously  rejected.  Indeed,  only 
one  other  man  had  the  temerity  to  put 
his  name  to  the  paper,  but  despite  this, 
its  sponsor  had  it  spread  in  full  upon  the 
records. 

In  this  action  Lincoln's  whole  political 
career  is  plainly  foreshadowed.     Where 
principles  were  at  stake  he  had  no  pru- 
[36] 


FAILURES    THAT    SUCCEEDED 

dence  and  knew  no  fear.  Balzac  says 
that  the  wiliest  politician  is  he  who,  swim 
ming  in  the  river  of  events,  keeps  his  head 
above  the  surface  and,  floating  with  the 
current,  appears  to  guide  its  course. 
From  this  viewpoint  Lincoln  has  no 
standing  as  a  politician  at  all,  for  he 
never  permitted  himself  to  be  carried  with 
the  tide  of  popular  opinion  unless  it 
tended  in  the  direction  of  his  goal. 

During  the  war  with  Mexico,  when  the 
whole  country  was  aflame  with  military 
ardor  and  flushed  with  the  brilliant 
achievements  of  our  arms,  he  rose  in  Con 
gress  and  denounced  the  war  as  utterly 
unjustifiable.  Worse  politics  than  this 
can  scarcely  be  imagined,  for  criticism  of 
one's  country  in  time  of  war  is  popularly 
regarded  not  only  as  unpatriotic,  but  posi 
tively  traitorous,  and  he  who  attempts  it 
has  little  knowledge  of  human  nature  if 
he  hopes  for  even  a  respectful  hearing. 
Lincoln  certainly  had  no  illusions  con 
cerning  the  effect  of  his  attitude,  but 
firmly  and  rightly  believing  that  the  in- 
[37] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

vasion  of  Mexico  was  an  attempt  to  ex 
tend  the  boundaries  of  slavery,  he  refused 
to  be  silenced  by  the  roar  of  the  conquer 
ing  cannon  or  the  enthusiastic  cheers. 
To  the  slogan,  "  Our  country,  right  or 
wrong! "  he  preferred  "  Our  country 
when  right,  to  be  kept  right;  when 
wrong,  to  be  put  right."  But  this,  to 
the  practical  politician,  was  displaying, 
not  the  courage,  but  "the  foolhardiness 
of  his  opinions,"  and  there  was  much 
wagging  of  wise  heads  when  he  was  re 
tired  to  private  life,  from  which  he  him 
self  never  expected  to  emerge. 

Those  who  suppose  that  Lincoln  was 
not  ambitious  but  little  know  the  man. 
He  had  a  natural  instinct  for  leader 
ship,  and  desired  to  earn  and  achieve  po 
litical  promotion.  No  man  ever  cam 
paigned  more  keenly  or  carefully  than  he, 
But  he  was  not  greedy  for  office.  He 
was  not  vain.  He  did  not  think  his  per 
sonal  success  more  important  than  the 
triumph  of  the  principles  for  which  he 
contended,  and  these  qualities  often 

[38] 


FAILURES    THAT    SUCCEEDED 

proved  insurmountable  obstacles  to  his 
advancement.  Thus,  in  1855,  when, 
after  seven  years'  absence  from  politics, 
he  re-entered  the  field  to  contest  for  the 
United  States  Senatorship,  he  allowed 
his  devotion  to  principles  to  ruin  his 
chances,  for,  against  the  violent  protest  of 
his  friends,  he  withdrew  in  favor  of  an 
anti-slavery  Democrat  when  he  saw  that 
such  action  would  insure  the  success  of 
his  cause. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  there  were  those 
who  regarded  him  as  an  ineffective  candi 
date.  To  the  office  hunter,  who  is  always 
more  interested  in  his  own  advancement 
than  in  the  furtherance  of  any  cause,  he 
must  have  seemed  quite  as  futile  as  any 
of  the  disinterested  reformers  of  the 
present  day,  for  whose  efforts  both  "the 
man  on  horseback  "  and  "  the  man  in  the 
street"  alike  have  an  indulgent  smile. 
Nevertheless,  this  politician  who  w.ould 
not  think  as  others  thought  did  not  disap 
pear  from  view,  while  those  who  echoed 
popular  opinion  and  did  what  they  were 
[39] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY   OF    INSPIRATION 

told  were  soon  forgotten.  The  people 
liked  his  courage,  and  he  was  finally  se 
lected  as  their  champion  against  Douglas 
in  the  great  contest  for  the  Illinois  Sena- 
torship  which  preceded  the  Civil  War. 

It  was  a  forlorn  hope  which  wras  thus 
intrusted  to  Lincoln's  charge,  for  his  op 
ponent  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  and 
popular  leaders  of  the  Democracy,  and 
that  party  was  in  control.  Under  such 
circumstances  the  ordinary  candidate 
would  have  been  extremely  careful  to 
speak  no  word  which  could  possibly  of 
fend,  and  otherwise  curry  favor  with  the 
voters.  But  Lincoln's  genius  for  "  bad 
politics  "  asserted  itself  at  the  very  outset, 
for  in  his  famous  "  house-divided-against- 
itself  "  speech,  he  declared  that  the  Union 
could  not  continue  to  exist  half  slave  and 
half  free.  Most  men  knew  in  their  hearts 
that  this  was  true,  but  for  a  candidate  to 
prophesy  the  dissolution  of  the  Union 
was,  at  that  crisis,  almost  courting  de 
feat. 

But  Lincoln  was  undisturbed  either  by 

[40] 


FAILURES    THAT    SUCCEEDED 

the  dismay  of  his  friends  or  the  elation  of 
his  foes.  He  knew  that  he  was  telling 
the  truth,  and  that  sooner  or  later  the 
truth  would  prevail.  Indeed,  the  fight 
had  not  much  more  than  begun  before  he 
was  guilty  of  far  greater  rashness,  for 
he  determined  to  question  Douglas  and 
force  him  to  define  his  position  on  the 
issues  of  the  day.  Mostly  earnestly  his 
advisers  warned  him  that  his  ingenious 
opponent  would  certainly  answer  in  such 
fashion  as  to  win  the  people  of  Illinois 
and  insure  the  defeat  of  the  Republican 
ticket.  But  Lincoln  was  a  leader  who 
refused  to  be  led,  and,  knowing  that 
what  satisfied  the  people  of  Illinois 
would  offend  the  slavery  men  elsewhere, 
he  deliberately  sacrificed  his  own  chances 
of  election  by  drawing  admissions  from 
his  adversary  which  almost  defeated  him 
for  the  Senate,  and  which  so  offended 
the  South  that  two  years  later  she  split 
the  Democracy  to  atoms  rather  than  ac 
cept  him  as  her  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency. 

[41] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

The  immediate  result,  however,  was  a 
defeat  for  the  anti-slavery  champion, 
and  a  man  of  different  calibre  might 
easily  have  become  discouraged  and  im- 
bittered  by  his  repeated  failures  and  re 
buffs.  But  Lincoln  did  not  care  to 
achieve  success  at  the  expense  of  his 
cause,  and  after  the  most  heart-breaking 
of  his  disappointments  he  was  able  to 
write:  fe  I  am  glad  I  made  the  late  race, 
and  though  I  now  sink  out  of  view,  I 
believe  I  have  made  some  marks  which 
will  tell  for  the  cause  of  civil  liberty  long 
after  I  am  gone'9 

It  was  this  spirit  that  in  the  end  made 
his  record  a  story  of  failures  that  suc 
ceeded,  and  his  example  heartens  those 
who,  with  high  purpose,  strive  for  princi 
ples  "  in  the  dust  of  defeat." 


[42] 


FOR   PUBLIC   SERVANTS   AND   PRIVATE 
CITIZENS 

IT  was  with  no  feeling  of  elation  or 
confidence  that  Lincoln  found  him 
self  President-elect.  He  was  not 
permitted  to  enjoy  even  a  moment  of  his 
well-earned  success.  The  period  that  in 
tervened  between  his  election  and  his  in 
auguration  witnessed  a  spectacle  which 
had  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  coun 
try,  and  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  may  re 
main  unique.  A  great  political  party 
had  triumphed  at  the  polls,  but  at  the  first 
threats  of  dissolving  the  Union  its  sup 
porters  not  only  tendered  back  the  fruits 
of  victory,  but  sought  peace  from  their 
opponents  at  any  price,  and  it  is  no  won 
der  that  the  representatives  of  the  South 
turned  from  them  with  distrust  and  dis 
gust.  Every  form  of  weak-kneed  com- 

[43] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

promise,  from  sentimental  sop  to  abject 
surrender,  had  its  nervous  advocate,  and 
Lincoln,  watching  the  pitiful  exhibition, 
might  well  have  felt  himself  betrayed 
in  the  house  of  his  friends.  Yet  he  dis 
played  no  personal  resentment  and  ut 
tered  no  complaints.  Indeed,  he  sympa 
thized  with  the  anxiety  which  was  disturb 
ing  the  judgment  of  public  men  and  ap 
preciated  the  feeling  of  panic  which 
wracked  the  general  community.  Fool 
ish  as  were  many  of  the  measures  urged 
to  insure  the  national  salvation,  he  neither 
despised  their  sponsors  nor  suspected 
their  motives.  Distrustful  of  his  own 
abilities,  he  put  himself  in  the  place  of 
those  who  felt  that  the  world  was  out  of 
joint,  and,  conscious  of  no  mental  supe 
riority,  weighed  all  their  hopes  and  mis 
givings. 

But  Lincoln,  though  "modest  to  the 
point  of  timidity,"  was  not  timid.  In  the 
midst  of  wild  rumors,  nerve-shaking  pos 
sibilities,  distracting  advice  and  a  babel 
of  confusion;  with  the  Government  fairly 


THE    CROWNING    OF    COURAGE 

tottering  and  little  help  in  sight,  he  found 
refuge  and  support  in  no  virtues  or  tal 
ents  which  are  denied  the  ordinary  man, 
but  in  that  calmness  and  courage  which 
every  one  who  is  born  into  the  world  may 
acquire  if  he  will. 

To  the  swarm  of  the  distracted  who 
buzzed  about  him,  some  urging  him  to 
adopt  their  policies,  others  to  anticipate 
his  own,  and  still  others  to  send  a  mes 
sage  of  reassurance  and  gopd  will  to  the 
disaffected  States,  he  listened  patiently, 
but  gave  no  sign.  Schooled  to  solve  his 
own  problems  and  do  his  own  thinking, 
he  did  not  feel  helpless  when  confronted 
by  new  questions,  and  refused  to  allow 
himself  to  be  diverted  by  considering 
complications  which  had  not  yet  occurred. 
From  his  earliest  youth  he  had  lived  one 
day  at  a  time,  and  he  saw  no  occasion  to 
reverse  the  habits  of  a  life.  Sure  of  the 
mandate  that  he  had  received  from  those 
who  had  elected  him  and  fixed  in  his  pur 
pose  neither  to  betray  nor  misuse  it,  he 
reduced  the  problem  to  its  simplest  form, 

[45] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

as  if  for  presentation  to  a  jury  of  his 
peers,  and  faced  the  issue  unafraid. 

Out  of  this  stress  and  storm  and  of 
this  modest  but  unterrified  deliberation 
there  came  his  first  Inaugural  address — a 
masterpiece  of  pleading  to  whose  findings 
of  fact  no  exception  could  be  taken,  and 
whose  conclusions  of  law  were  never  over 
ruled.  Conscious  of  his  own  inexperi 
ence  and  diffident  of  his  own  powers,  he 
then  surrounded  himself  by  counselors 
whose  training  and  ability  had  won  the 
confidence  of  the  nation,  and  to  them  he 
applied  the  simple  tests  which  had  long 
served  him  to  gauge  the  characters  and 
know  the  hearts  of  men.  Without  guile 
and  with  the  sincere  desire  that  the  coun 
try  should  benefit  by  the  services  of  these 
men,  he  allowed  them  full  scope  in  the 
performance  of  their  several  duties,  even 
permitting  encroachments  on  the  dignity 
of  his  own  office,  and  laying  aside  his 
personal  feelings  for  the  furtherance  of 
the  trust  committed  to  his  charge. 

It  was  no  complaisant  weakling,  how- 
[46] 


THE    CROWNING   OF    COURAGE 

ever,  who  thus  effaced  himself,  but  a  man 
whose  daily  training  in  the  work-a-day 
world  had  brought  him  into  touch  with 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men — men 
whose  business  it  was  to  persuade  or 
coerce  others  to  their  way  of  thinking,  and 
who  employed  every  device  from  legiti 
mate  argument  to  brutal  terrorizing  to 
accomplish  their  ends.  His  constant 
practice  in  the  courts  had  thoroughly  fa 
miliarized  him  with  the  bulldozers  and  the 
"  roarers  "  of  his  profession,  and  long  be 
fore  he  encountered  them  in  his  Cabinet 
he  had  met  the  prototypes  of  Stanton 
and  Seward  and  Chase.  A  President  of 
different  temper  or  other  training  would 
doubtless  have  quarreled  with  those  mas 
terful  men  or  been  himself  torn  apart  by 
them  in  their  struggles  for  supremacy, 
but  Lincoln  handled  them  with  a  sure 
touch  and  made  them  work  together  for 
the  nation.  Thus  when  Stanton  at 
tempted  to  browbeat  him  at  the  very  out 
set  of  his  career,  he  stood  unmoved  by  his 
gusty  outbursts  and  employed  his  fanati- 
[47] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

cal  egotism  to  the  fullest  possible  advan 
tage.  When  Chase  played  for  the  Pres 
idency  even  as  he  sat  at  the  Cabinet  table, 
thinking  that  his  masked  moves  would 
escape  the  attention  of  the  country, 
"  mast-fed "  lawyer,  he  was  skillfully 
checked  and  delicately  manoeuvred  into 
a  resignation;  and  when  Seward,  whose 
temporary  mania  of  grandeur  once  took 
the  form  of  imagining  himself  a  dictator 
clothed  with  power  to  avert  the  civil  perils 
by  instigating  a  foreign  war,  he  was  not 
only  tactfully  disillusioned,  but  his  repu 
tation  was  protected  by  the  magnani 
mous  silence  of  the  man  he  had  endeav 
ored  to  supplant. 

But  while  he  was  thus  taking  the  meas 
ure  of  his  associates,  Lincoln  was  slowly 
but  surely  mastering  the  innumerable  du 
ties  of  his  office,  meeting  its  responsibil 
ities  as  they  developed,  and  familiarizing 
himself  with  his  mighty  powers.  Inger- 
soll  has  said  that  "  it  is  easy  for  the  weak 
to  be  gentle;  most  people  can  bear  adver 
sity;  but  if  you  wish  to  know  what  a  man 

[48] 


THE    CROWNING   OF    COURAGE 

really  is,  give  him  power.  That  is  the 
supreme  test."  Lincoln  was  not  afraid 
to  use  his  power,  but  he  never  abused  it. 
Though  invested,  as  President,  wdth  al 
most  supreme  authority,  he  never  forgot 
its  source;  he  never  ceased  to  be  one  of 
the  people,  and  the  exercise  of  his  prerog 
atives,  instead  of  making  him  arrogant 
and  careless  of  the  rights  of  others,  only 
added  to  his  burden  of  care. 

To  relieve  the  constant  strain  of  that 
burden  he  relied  on  humor,  and  his  oppo 
nents  called  him  a  trifler ;  to  simplify  mo 
mentous  questions  he  sought  homely  par 
allels,  and  the  world  concluded  that  he 
lacked  capacity  to  grasp  affairs  of  state; 
to  humanize  official  action  he  employed 
droll  anecdotes  and  illustrations,  and  the 
solemn  and  the  pompous  proclaimed  him 
a  buffoon.  Absolutely  free  of  affectation 
himself,  he  scandalized  and  embarrassed 
those  whose  dignity  was  only  surface 
deep,  but  they  who  fancied  themselves 
privileged  to  indulge  in  undue  liberties  at 
his  expense  did  not  make  the  error  twice. 
[49] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

Slow  in  action,  calm  in  danger,  sincere  in 
thought,  kindly  in  feeling,  wise  in  coun 
sel,  this  devoted  servant  of  the  State 
guided  the  nation  to  safety  and  then 
found  rest  from  the  labors  that  had  worn 
and  saddened  him  for  five  long,  stormy 
years. 

Political  passions  and  prejudices  often 
afford  strange  reading  in  the  light  of 
history's  verdict.  Americans  who  are 
taught  to  believe  that  their  public  men, 
whom  they  themselves  elect  to  office, 
become  lost  to  honor  and  dead  to  shame 
almost  from  the  moment  they  are  clothed 
with  power,  can  learn  a  lesson  by 
remembering  that  many  of  those  who 
sought  to  guide  popular  opinion  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Republic  denounced 
Washington  as  a  traitor,  and  that  v.ol- 
umes  of  contemporaneous  libel  could  be 
collected  to  prove  that  Lincoln  was  some 
thing  worse. 

Certainly  there  never  was  a  human 
being  more  maligned,  more  ridiculed  or 
more  unsparingly  accused  and  condemned 

[50] 


THE    CROWNING   OF    COURAGE 

than  Abraham  Lincoln.  Ingenuity  ex 
hausted  itself  in  efforts  to  insult  him; 
partisan  malice  and  personal  spite,  both 
North  and  South,  shamelessly  contended 
to  sting  him  with  abuse;  vilification 
strove  to  pillory  him  at  every  turn.  But 
no  savage  word  ever  escaped  his  lips. 
The  iron  did  not  enter  into  his  soul.  He 
sought  neither  vindication  nor  revenge. 
Through  the  miasma  of  hatred  and  dis 
trust  he  saw  the  dawning  of  his  hopes. 
Before  he  died  "  he  heard  the  hisses  turn 
to  cheers." 

Lincoln  was  a  great  Executive,  but  he 
was  a  greater  man.  He  left  his  country 
the  better  for  his  having  been  in  it.  That 
— his  greatest  achievement — is  not  be 
yond  the  power  of  the  humblest  in  the 
land,  and  every  American  who  strives  to 
make  his  part  of  the  country — no  matter 
how  small  that  part  may  be — the  better 
for  his  presence,  crowns  Lincoln's  cour 
age  and  shares  his  glory. 


[51] 


FOR  MEN  OF  COMMON  MOLD 

IN  seeking  to  interpret  the  careers  of 
famous  men,  it  is  usually  possible, 
and  often  not  difficult,  to  trace  out 
some  dominating  influence  or  discover 
some  determining  factor  in  their  lives 
which  reveals  the  secret  of  their  success. 
The  result,  however,  is  rarely  of  any  prac 
tical  benefit  to  humanity.  The  circum 
stances  that  give  the  impulse  to  such  men 
or  serve  to  mold  them  are  not,  as  a  rule, 
within  the  experience  of  the  ordinary  in 
dividual.  They  are  exceptional,  extra 
ordinary,  or  hopelessly  unique.  The  man 
who  awaits  some  marvelous  crisis  in  his 
life  or  expects  some  intervention  of  Prov 
idence,  such  as  favored  this  or  that  his 
toric  character,  deceives  himself  with  false 
hopes.  All  the  chances  are  against  a 

[52] 


THE    HARVESTING    OF    TRIFLES 

repetition  of  the  conditions  which  pro 
duce  any  particular  hero. 

But  with  Lincoln  the  case  is  very  dif 
ferent.  It  is  not  possible  to  place  a  fin 
ger  on  any  one  fact  in  his  history  and 
declare  with  certainty  that  that  was  the 
inciting  cause  of  his  success,  or  to  demon 
strate  that  any  special  chain  of  events 
made  him  what  he  was.  He  was  sub 
jected  to  no  great  inspiring  influence;  no 
wonderful  experience  determined  his  life. 
His  career  was  not  a  climacteric  awaken 
ing — it  was  a  natural  development. 

If  this  be  true,  it  practically  eliminates 
the  distinction  between  Lincoln  the  man 
and  Lincoln  the  President,  and  disposes 
of  the  claim  that  his  achievements  as  the 
head  of  the  nation  were  due  to  the  sudden 
enlargement  of  extraordinary  latent  pow 
ers.  To  some  this  offers  the  only  rational 
explanation  of  his  statesmanship.  Des 
pite  the  fact  that  he  was  over  fifty  years 
of  age  when  he  became  President,  and 
that  his  record  was,  up  to  that  time, 
largely  due  to  qualities  which  are  part  of 

[53] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

the  common  heritage  of  all  his  country 
men,  many  of  his  eulogists  cannot  believe 
that  these  same  qualities  served  to  effect 
his  historic  results.  No  man,  they  con 
tend,  whose  equipment  was  really  on  a 
plane  with  his  fellows  could  possibly 
have  accomplished  what  he  did.  Masters 
of  men,  it  is  asserted,  are  not  molded 
from  ordinary  clay,  and  it  is  incredible 
that  the  great  logician,  resourceful  diplo 
matist,  and  guiding  spirit  of  the  Civil 
War  lacked  the  intellectual  endowments 
of  a  genius. 

Nevertheless,  if  Lincoln's  achievements 
be  carefully  examined,  they  will,  in  the 
final  analysis,  be  found  to  rest  upon  moral 
qualities  rather  than  mental  attributes, 
and  those  moral  qualities  are  all  plainly 
discernible  in  the  life  training  which 
fitted  him  for  his  great  task.  To  assume 
that  he  suddenly  developed  brilliancy  and 
revealed  superhuman  endowments  at  the 
call  of  high  office  is  to  ignore  the  man  in 
the  making  and  put  a  needless  tax  upon 
credulity.  What  was  there  in  his  services 

[54] 


THE    HARVESTING    OF    TRIFLES 

to  the  State  that  demands  such  a  sacrifice 
of  probability?  The  magnitude  of  his  re 
sults  must  not  be  permitted  to  exagger 
ate  the  means  by  which  he  effected  them. 
The  preservation  of  the  Union  and  the 
suppression  of  slavery  were  not  accom 
plished  by  an  intellectual  tour  de  force, 
and  the  great  crises  of  the  period  were 
not  met  by  masterly  strokes  of  genius. 
It  was  Lincoln's  daily  example  of  reso 
lution,  fortitude  and  patience  that  pre 
vailed  during  the  life-and-death  struggle 
of  the  nation.  It  was  the  forbearance  of 
the  hour — the  tact  of  the  moment  that 
molded  the  event. 

During  his  whole  life,  prior  to  the 
Presidency,  he  relied  on  the  influence  of 
simple  virtues  and  their  all-conquering 
power,  and  his  handling  of  public  ques 
tions,  great  and  small,  during  his  offi 
cial  career,  displays  the  same  traits  of 
mind  and  character.  The  country  lawyer 
whose  sense  of  justice  restrained  his  rapa 
cious  clients  was  the  same  man  who, 
against  his  personal  inclination  and  the 

[55] 


LINCOLN'S    LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

heaviest  of  moral  pressures,  resisted  every 
effort  of  the  Abolitionists  to  deprive  the 
South  of  her  property  without  due  proc 
ess  of  law,  and  it  was  not  until  every 
legal  expedient  had  been  exhausted  that 
he  consented,  as  military  commander,  to 
issue  the  Emancipation  Proclamation. 
The  writer  who  produced  the  masterpiece 
of  Gettysburg  was  not  a  literary  genius, 
but  one  whose  lips  spoke  what  his  heart 
suggested,  and  whose  human  sympathy 
and  genuine  humility  took  that  immortal 
form.  In  like  manner  all  the  episodes  of 
his  Administration  may  be  examined 
without  disclosing  anything  which  he  ac 
complished  by  virtue  of  gifts  of  which 
the  ordinary  mortal  need  despair. 

What  were  the  forces  by  which  he 
effected  what  brainier  men  could  not 
achieve?  He  was  unselfish. — Is  that  an 
impossible  virtue?  He  was  simple  and 
modest. — Is  talent  required  for  that? 
He  was  sympathetic  and  considerate  of 
others. — No  college  or  school  teaches 
that.  He  was  sincere  in  thought  and 
[56] 


THE    HARVESTING    OF    TRIFLES 

action. — Xo  dramatic  crisis  brought  this 
about.  He  was  honest,  cared  little  for 
money  and  much  for  honor. — Dare  any 
one  admit  that  this  is  beyond  him?  He 
was  deliberate  in  judgment  and  long 
suffering  in  patience. — Those  are  not  in 
tellectual  achievements.  He  was  tem 
perate  in  word  and  deed. — That  is  a 
matter  of  self-control. 

His  triumph  was  the  perfecting  of 
qualities  which  all  men  may  command. 
Were  every  citizen  of  this  broad  land  to 
develop  the  best  that  lies  within  him, 
Lincoln  would  be  a  type  and  not  an 
example. 

Of  course,  if  some  great,  striking 
event  transformed  Lincoln  from  a  man 
of  common  mold  into  a  god,  the  story  of 
his  life  has  merely  a  dramatic  or  pictur 
esque  interest  for  ordinary  mortals.  But 
nothing  of  the  sort  occurred.  The  events 
which  shaped  him  were  the  everyday  hap 
penings  of  the  dull,  trivial  round — the 
irksome  details  of  routine. 

Those  who  fret  because  they  seem  to 
[57] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY   OF    INSPIRATION 

be  wasting  time  over  insignificant  tasks, 
or  despair  of  gaining  anything  from 
them,  or  are  discouraged  because  they 
are  not  progressing  fast  enough,  or  are 
not  receiving  what  they  regard  as  "a 
fair  chance  in  life,"  have  something  to 
learn  from  the  pages  of  Lincoln's  life. 
It  was  a  wise  as  well  as  a  subtle  philos 
opher  who  declared  that  "the  time  best 
spent  is  the  time  we  waste." 

Doubtless  Lincoln  thought  he  was 
wasting  time  as  a  farmhand  in  the  fields; 
as  a  clerk  in  Offutt's  store ;  as  the  unsuc 
cessful  proprietor  of  a  grocery;  and  at 
the  end  of  his  term  in  Congress  it  is  well 
known  that  he  regarded  the  years  he  had 
devoted  to  politics  as  time  thrown  away. 
Yet  the  years  spent  in  the  open  air  gave 
him  the  constitution  of  iron  without  which 
his  great  work  could  never  have  been 
accomplished;  his  experience  as  a  clerk 
earned  him  the  tribute  rather  than  the 
nickname  of  "Honest  Abe";  his  incur 
sion  into  the  business  world  tested  and 
tempered  his  honor,  and  the  knowledge 

[58] 


THE    HARVESTING    OF    TRIFLES 

gained  of  local  politics  contributed  essen 
tially  to  his  career.  There  was  not  an 
experience  in  his  entire  life  which  may 
fairly  be  said  to  have  proved  a  waste  of 
time — there  was  scarcely  anything  which 
entered  into  or  even  touched  it  which  he 
did  not  sooner  or  later  turn  to  some 
account. 

During  his  career  as  President  there 
were  times  when  a  highly  cultured  man 
with  little  or  no  real  knowledge  of  the 
people  would  surely  have  brought  disaster 
upon  himself;  again  and  again  he  utilized 
homely  trifles  of  daily  living  which  had 
sunk  into  his  being  and  with  which  he 
had  never  consciously  charged  his  mind. 
All  his  failures  and  disappointments 
bore  rich  harvests.  No  career  ever  more 
clearly  demonstrated  the  value  of  "  the 
little  things  that  are  not  worth  while," 
or  better  revealed  the  undreamed  of  pos 
sibilities  that  lie  within  the  humblest  ex 
perience. 

Lincoln  contributed  some  wonderful 
pages  to  history,  but  other  men  have  done 
[59] 


LINCOLN'S   LEGACY    OF    INSPIRATION 

that  and  the  world,  as  a  whole,  has  not 
greatly  benefited.  He  won  a  place 
among  the  mightiest  rulers  of  the  earth, 
but  others  have  done  that  whose  names 
have  become  mere  memory-tests,  or  whose 
deeds  are  chiefly  recorded  on  blood 
stained  battlefields.  He  did  much  to  pre 
serve  the  Union  and  abolish  slavery,  but 
generals  and  soldiers  and  a  vast  army  of 
simple  citizens  supported  him  in  that 
work,  and  are  entitled  to  share  in  the 
glory. 

It  is  neither  Lincoln  the  President — 
nor  Lincoln  the  Master  of  Men — nor 
Lincoln  the  Saviour  of  the  State,  who  is 
winning  the  hearts  of  more  and  more 
Americans  each  year.  All  that  history 
could  tell  of  the  President  was  told  many 
years  ago.  It  is  Lincoln  the  man  who 
is  inspiring  his  fellows  to-day — the  man 
within  touch  of  all  the  lowly  of  heart. 
This  is  he  who,  of  all  Americans,  is 
"leaving  his  impress  upon  eternity." 


[60] 


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THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY    "  4 


